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It's hard to believe that one of the founding American metal bands, The Rods, doesn't have an album reviewed here at The Metal Crypt, not even the "classic" Let Them Eat Metal, which any '80s fan worth his/her salt will know from the cover alone. Even if you never heard their music, which is something I inexplicably managed to do, you had to have seen drummer Carl Canedy's name all over early albums by Anthrax, Exciter, Helstar, Overkill, Possessed and many others as he was one of the premier early metal producers. The band released half a dozen albums in the '80s, broke up for 20+ years and reformed in 2010 with Brotherhood of Metal their ninth full-length to date. Enough of the history lesson.

The Rods were/are a prototypical American band that play music which straddles the line between hard rock and traditional metal. They play mainly mid-paced material and sing about metal ("Brotherhood of Metal", "1982"), partying ("Party All Night", "Everybody's Rockin'") and fantasy/adventure ("Tyrant King"). There's nothing over the top in any of the performances and the album chugs along like it's 1983 again. I want to tell you there's a killer track or two that would make Brotherhood of Metal worth going out of your way to grab, but I can't. You can, however, do a lot worse and The Rods haven't embarrassed themselves in any way, though they could have made the chorus on "Party All Night" a lot less repetitive and I wouldn't have complained. If you dig early US metal or the recent albums from Anvil, another long-running trio, give Brotherhood of Metal a spin.